Saturday, April 16, 2016

Interviews and My App

I had three different groups of people to interview and question. Individuals in the first group were, a freshman Temple student (P1), a human resources employee (P2), and a friend of mine who is a house wife (P3). I used the questions Christina offered us in the PDF.

Do you have a cellphone?

P1- "Yes, I have a Galaxy S6 Active."

P2- "Yes, I do."

P3- "Yes I have a cellphone. I have Samsung Galaxy S4 Active."

How often do you use your phone?

P1- " I use my cellphone almost constantly."

P2- "Daily and often."

P3- " I use my phone all the time every day."

What do you use your phone to do?

P1- " I usually use it to text or snap-chat my friends, email, Facebook, and
play games when I'm bored. I feel that the "call" feature in cellphones
is no longer the most important aspect to most people, as it was in the past."

P2- "Talk on the phone, text, check and send email, social media, camera for pictures and video, voice recorder."

P1- "Compared to a desktop, my phone offers extreme mobility. If you think
about it, these days, most phones can do just about everything a
computer can. I can use Microsoft office, browse the internet, and edit
photos. But it's all the extras that set a phone apart. Speaking on the
phone, instant knowledge and information on the go, and even a
navigation System."

P2- "Take pictures, talk on the phone, it's light and portable."

P3- "Cellphone fits in my pocket and I can take it everywhere. Desktop is bulky to take anywhere.

Things I can do with my phone and not my laptop, make and receive phone calls, send and receive SMS, and take pictures."

The second group of people was three educators of my colleagues, the first one teaches Arabic (P1), the second one teaches French (P2), and the third one teaches German (P3). For this interview, I used the questions Christina posted this week's page.

What do you notice about the interests students bring to their classrooms?

P(1)- "My students always ask questions advanced to their level. They want to know everything about the language in a very short time.They bring to the classroom amazing curiosity and desire to learn."

P(2)- "Students are very interested in popular culture (current music, film, commercials, technology)."

P(3)- "
Students don't bring many interests to the classroom. The interests I
am aware of are sports, music, connecting with friends esp. through
social media, course work."

In what ways do you (or can you imagine) connecting these interests to academics pursuits and curricular goals?

P(1)- "They use new words in their homework and in the classroom all the
time and always google not only the meaning of these new words but also
the pronunciation. I see them understand how a
small change in the endings of the words can make the difference between
subject and direct object or between possessive construction and
adjective and how that changes the meaning of the sentence and
sometimes makes it funny. They joke all the time and make little changes to the words to make up silly sentences. They
use that to write comprehension and translate paragraphs and that makes
them able to say what they want in the correct way and correct grammar."

P(2)- "I
use these elements (music, film, tech...) depending on the vocabulary
and grammar targeted in class. It helps 1. contextualize the material 2.
make it meaningful/relevant to the students and 3. take the language
study to a cultural level."

P(3)- "I can imagine integrating course work into social media. We already use
D2L for discussion groups, but I think students would be more engaged
if they could post to a site directly and easily from their smartphones."

How do you mostly use your phone? To connect with people? To create something new? To play?

P(1)- "I use my phone to connect with people through emails, sms, Whats app, Skype, messenger, and phone calls. I read the news, check the weather and the road and traveling time, also posts on face book. I also use the calculator, amazon, alarm, I also use it to keep addresses and important

P(2)- "I never use my phone with my students except to answer to their emails if I'm away from home."

(P3)- "I
use my phone primarily for writing texts or what's app, making phone
calls, taking pictures, going to websites (but not for reading longer
texts), and playing games."

The Third group of people was my students, and my question was, if I am creating an app for Arabic language, how do you like it to be? My students gave me great ideas. The main idea was to include all what they need in one app. Is it possible? I think so. If a very good group of IT experts and Arabic language educators collaborate together to create the app.

Combining together the results of the interviews I had with what I think should be available in a good Arabic app to use. I think that my app needs to have vocabulary games, like choosing what materials you need to build a house, or where to visit when you travel,...etc, the word of the day quiz, the conjugations of the verbs, a good dictionary, a chatting window with native speakers and other learners, tutoring videos, and some stories and books to read.

ED 677 makes me sometimes dream about something I never thought about before. I hope my dreams come true as being a teacher came true.